The control of personal data by “big data” companies is not just as issue of privacy but is becoming a critical issue of economic justice, argues a new report issued by the organization Data Justice (www.datajustice.org), which itself is being publicly launched in conjunction with the report.

“This steady loss of data by individuals into the hands of increasingly centralized corporate hands is helping to drive a large portion of the economic inequality that has becoming central to political debate in our nation,” said Data Justice Director Nathan Newman, the report’s author.

Big data platforms collect so much information about so many people, details the report, that correlations emerge that allow individuals to be slotted into hiring and marketing categories in unexpected and often unwelcome ways that usually leave them at a distinct disadvantage in negotiations. This enables advertisers to offer goods at different prices to different people, what economists call price discrimination, to extract the maximum price from each individual consumer. Such online price discrimination raises prices overall for consumers, while often hurting lower-income and less technologically savvy households.

Data crunchers were key to manipulating financial markets and securities throughout the financial industry and big data platforms were critical parts of the marketing machine that used various forms of consumer profiling and price discrimination to push subprime financial products out to the most vulnerable members of the American public. Notably, by the mid-2000s, the lion’s share of the online advertising economy was being driven by subprime and related mortgage lenders, highlighting the ways the profits of big data platforms have often come at the expense of consumer welfare.

“At the same time, big data is fueling economic concentration across our economy,” argues Newman. As a handful of data platforms generate massive amounts of user data, the barriers to entry rise since potential competitors have little data themselves to entice advertisers compared to the incumbents who have both the concentrated processing power and supply of user data to dominate particular sectors. With little competition, companies end up with little incentive to either protect user privacy or share the economic value of that user data with the consumers generating those profits.

The report argues for a threefold approach to making big data work for everyone in the economy, not just the big data platforms’ shareholders:

First, regulators need to strengthen user control of their own data by both requiring explicit consent for all uses of the data and better informing users of how it’s being used and how companies profit from that data.

Second, regulators need to factor control of data into merger review and to initiate antitrust actions against companies like Google where monopoly control of a sector like search advertising has been established.

Third, policymakers should restrict practices that harm consumers, including banning price discrimination where consumers are not informed of all discount options available and bringing the participation of big data platforms in marketing financial services under the regulation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Data Justice itself has been founded as an organization “to promote public education and new alliances to challenge the danger of big data to workers, consumers and the public.” It will work to educate the public, policymakers and organizational allies on how big data is contributing to economic inequality in the economy. Its new website at